Five decades after the development of the kefala [sponsorship] system, Lebanon’s 200,000 migrant domestic workers continue to be denied their inalienable rights, including freedom of movement, just conditions of work, the right to marry and to found a family, the right to legal recognition, and freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment.
The root of the problem is that migrant domestic workers’ immigration status is bound to their sponsor. Migrant domestic workers cannot enter the country, transfer employment, travel within the country, or leave the country without permission from their sponsor. The sponsor almost always confiscates the passport and travel documents of the worker, restricts their contacts outside the home, and often prevents them from leaving the home entirely. Migrant domestic workers are thus completely dependent on their sponsor for food, housing, healthcare, wages, leisure, communications, and other basic freedoms.
